


Things Owned, Things Free

by LeoOtherLands



Category: Dead by Daylight (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternative Path To The Fog, Blood, Canon-Typical Violence, Consensual Underage Sex, Death, Do Not Be Deceived By The Initial Cuteness, Explicit Sexual Content, I'm Going To Hurt You, M/M, Manipulation, Master/Pet, Possessive Behavior, Pre-entity, Rare Pairings, Slow To Update, they're both kids
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-29
Updated: 2021-02-19
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:28:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27772264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeoOtherLands/pseuds/LeoOtherLands
Summary: We all chose the paths we walk... sometimes we come to regret the paths we take. For Evan MacMillan, there will be nothing but regret in the Fog.
Relationships: Evan MacMillan | The Trapper/Jake Park
Comments: 12
Kudos: 34





	1. Things Found

**Author's Note:**

> I am a writer of dark and disturbing things, who wraps the cruelty in pretty words. Take note of that. I have done my best to tag this appropriately and give warning where warning is due. Please do not blame me if you read and do not like what you find. I have opted to leave off the Dead Dove: Do Not Eat tag because I have written many things and I do not feel this work will be deserving of that label, however not everyone's tolerance is the same where dark is concerned. Reader take care.

The mewing cry was something between pain and desperation, something like the outcry of a puppy, lost and alone and confused. But again, not like an animal at all. The sounds were like tears and, pushing through the underbrush, I wondered just what I’d caught. Most things didn’t whimper like that. Most things would growl or whine or just remain quiet altogether, not plead at nothing. Not whimpering to the air. And the closer I got, the more leaves and branches and scrub growth and brambles I forced out of my way, the more that was what it sounded like.

Begging. Inarticulate begging to be free.

Frowning, brows drawing together, I shoved my way through the last nettles and under the leaning length of a long-fallen oak into the semi-clearing I knew so well. What I found had me stopping, hand flexing at my side, frown deepening. Tangled in my live snares was a boy. A boy… A small, helpless thing pinioned in soft ropes, like a bird in carelessly-discarded fishing line.

His limbs were splayed out, noosed and tethered to various saplings, except one arm that was bound tight to his chest. His back strained and his muscles tensed and pulled, but every knot he struggled against only got tighter, until he had to stop and fall still with a little cry, leaving him a shivering wreck on the ground. Hot, thick tears wet his face and lent it a shine, as he tucked it down to the ground and lamented his state. Mewing puppy cries that somehow drew me because this was my doing. Of course it was. I liked to catch things and this was possibly the most intriguing thing I’d ever caught.

He was dressed in mismatched, too-big clothes that hid his age, to some extent, but he was also tiny. Tiny in a way that spoke of being small for his age and just all-around petite. And this didn’t help determine his years. But when my soft footstep registered on his ears and he turned his wet face up to me, lip in his teeth and little sobs in his throat, I guessed he was perhaps half my age. Four. If that. A young thing. So young. And what was a young one like him doing out here all alone? There was no sign of anyone else, no sign of parent or guardian, and why should that be? Unless he was a stray. A stray child and unwanted and caught in my snares.

More interesting of a thing than any animal.

He mewed again, when I flicked open my pocket knife, and choked on a strangled cry. More budding tears leaked out and dark clumps of hair stuck to his face, catching in the damp. His eyes were just as dark, under the tears, and luminous from the water. Pretty. Like onyx and jet and agate.

“Easy,” I said, crouching down beside him. I rested one hand on his trembling back, to try and calm him, and my fingers encountered thin fabric and bone beneath. The ridges of his vertebrae standing prominent under his shirt. My hand was steady there, rubbing up and down his spine, and he quieted, tucking his face against my leg and waiting. Sporadic tremors running through his body.

He stiffened when my blade touched his skin, but he didn’t make a sound, only laying there and letting me saw through the ropes holding him. The ropes I’d laid to catch a far less interesting prey. His body was tense. Anticipatory. When the last severed length of rope fell away, another shiver rode down his spine, bowing it up into my hands, and I rubbed its length again, savoring the feel of it, enjoying each node of bone, even as part of me wondered if I would have to tell him to sit up and coax to get him moving. But, after some more stroking and gentle petting, he sat up on his own, fisting tears from his dark, intent eyes.

Looking at him like that, cross-legged in the dirt, it was easier to see what a mess he was. Wild, uneven hair falling in his face, uncaring, clothes so baggy they made him appear even smaller than he was, dirt smudged and rubbed into every pore of him. He was disorder personified and, sniffing and worrying his lip in his teeth, I should have been disgusted. Needless filth and disarray aggravated me, but not this boy. His strange, fearless, pleading look was endearing, and the way his hair hung over his face made me want to reach out and brush it away.

Unthinking, my hand moved and flecked some of his hair back. A careless, annoyed gesture, spawned by the sheer haphazardness and non-understanding of him. What was this boy? This wild, little thing?

He went still at the contact, and for a moment, I had to consider whether or not I’d made a mistake, a miscalculation with this unnatural specimen I’d caught. But he only sniffed a last time, made a little, whimpery sound, wiped at his tears, one more time, then peered at me with dark, damp, almost-luminescent eyes. A line appeared between those eyes, while he considered me as only a child can. With confused seriousness and an unconscious pout of concentration covering his features.

I didn’t know what to make of him, this little one, so apparently unafraid of being out in the woods and of me. “I’m Evan,” I said instead of investigating further through my mind for an answer to why I did not immediately know what I wanted to do with this boy. This was not what I normally did with what I caught. This was not how I acted toward the prey: with kindness and interest. And I found myself using words to take back control of this situation. A control I did not know how I had lost, when he had done nothing but look at me and consider me.

The line between his eyes deepened, as did the thoughtful pout on his small, oval face. Then, “Jake,” he chipped out, head suddenly cocking to the side and a sunny smile breaking out on his face, altering the whole cast of his appearance. Here was a fearless, suddenly content creature, who had completely forgotten his pain and tears of just moments before.

Consternation rose in my chest, feeling I had again lost control and not understanding how or why or when I had done it. How had this boy stolen my control with a single word, which wasn’t even my name? “No,” I corrected. “Not Jake. Evan.”

The boy tilted his head another way, no longer smiling. Instead looking up at me as if I’d just said the most ridiculous and senseless thing ever. The dubious, eternally patient expression made me want to grind my teeth together and forget understanding this boy in favor of taking my trophy for my catch, but his voice stopped me a moment later, emerging slow and soft from his lips.

“Evan,” he echoed, going to his hands and knees and turning a small smile up at me, now, suddenly as if I were the most incredible thing he had ever found. “Evan, Evan!”

“Y-yeah,” I said, blinking at him and the unexpected, almost-affection directed at me.

His grin widened at my stuttering and he closed his eyes and pressed into me, nuzzling against my chest and shoulder and slotting his dirty face into the curve of my neck. “Evan,” he murmured there.

Surprised and caught off guard, I sat there, feeling this tiny ball of cloth and bone cuddle against me, as if he truly were a puppy and showing gratitude for the one who had found him, then, hesitantly, my arms moved up of their own accord and wrapped around him. He was warm and his bones were hard under my hands, like the bones of a bird picked up off the ground.

“Evan, Evan,” he babbled again, and something beyond my normal possessive nature bubbled up in me, behind my eyes, whiting out my vision, even as I realized this young little one might not be able to speak to the same degree someone of his age should. He did not act as most children did and it was very possible he was more than just a stray. That he was indeed some wild thing of the woods.

“Yeah, my name’s Evan,” I said on the tail of this realization, letting my fingers feel along his spine again, liking the feel of each angle beneath my fingertips all over again.

Only to have my pleasure ripped away when he wiggled out of my arms to half kneel in front of me with his hands braced on my knee. “Evan,” he chippered with all the seriousness in the world, once more, looking up into my eyes. Hopeful. Utterly beguiling.

I wanted him and there was nothing in the world going to keep me from him.

A moment. A beat between us, unchanging, and, “Jake!” he declared.

Something clicked in my mind. Something simple and on cue. He might not be able to speak as he should, but the boy was not unintelligent. And he was attempting to make me understand. “You’re Jake,” I said, running my eyes over him.

I was rewarded for this correct observation with that same smile which had altered his features before. Fearless, content, happy. Happy I had understood and now knew what to call him. This little boy of mine. “Evan!” He enthused, followed by, “Jake!”

“Evan, and Jake,” I agreed, putting out a hand to ruffle his already mused hair. He took it with the same mix of feelings on his face. Took it in a way I could only equate with a puppy having its ears rubbed. He kept smiling at me and nuzzled into my hand. A hand I let stay on his head when I’d finished with his hair.

The younger boy just cocked his head again, watching me and perhaps the slow, not entirely kind thoughts moving behind my gaze. I’d caught this strange little feral and that possessiveness was blooming heavy inside me. He was mine, wasn’t he? I’d caught him and that made him mine. Him, and the way he looked at me with happy abandon and fearlessness, almost worshipfulness, as if I were some form of idol. Something to be adored.

I wanted more of that.

And I would get it.

“Come on, Jake,” I said, standing and holding out a hand to him. “Let’s go home.”

I wondered if he would resist or put up a fight, or if he would even understand my directive, but he only ginned at me, as if my statement had been the most coveted of ideas and jumped up. His hand slipped into mine and it felt light and little there. Hardly present, as he looked up at me with expectation. And yet, that hand felt perfect in mine. A perfect fit held in my larger hand and I curled my fingers around it.


	2. Things Kept

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It has certainly been a long time since I posted the first chapter of this. I have been writing this second chapter in little spurts since then. I am afraid I have several projects going at once, so updates here will be slow in coming. But I love this story and intend to finish it. If you enjoy it, and want to know the end, hit the subscribe button and I'll surprise you with updates at random times. Stay safe, all!

Holding his hand was all well and good, until we left the clearing. After that, it became more of a trial than a means to keep him close and retain a tangible hold on my prize. He was small, borderline tiny, and he had difficulty maneuvering through the thick underbrush and clinging, grasping nettles with one hand immobilized in mine. A fact compounded by his baggy clothes, in particular the over-long, almost colorless scarf he wore. The fabric kept catching on sharp, reaching branches and scratching twigs and dry brush. Countless times he would stop with a cry that brought tears to his dark eyes and whine while he tugged the scarf free.

“Just leave it, Jake,” I instructed with mounting annoyance, after the third or fourth occurrence of this. My free hand went to brush the material off his thin shoulders, that hardly seemed wide enough to hold it up around his neck, and into the dirt, but for the first time my little, feral boy put up a resistance to my idea of what should be.

“Evan!” he cried, tugging at my hold on his hand and clutching at the soft folds of dirty cloth with the other. “Evan, Evan!”

Anger was quick to boil up in me, but the pathetic tears in his deeply-shaded, agate eyes made something in me redirect my displeasure. “Your legs are too damn short, Jake,” I grunted from behind clenched teeth. “How did you even get out here on your own?”

“Evan,” this was a whimper and the pooling tears forming spilled out, now he seemed assured I would not separate him from the paltry piece of cloth he was attached to. Clinging to my hand tighter with his small one, to the point of almost pain, he pressed against me again and I had a momentary, perfectly clear flash of what that dirt-begrimed face, wet with tears, was doing to my shirt.

I should have been repelled, but the feel of that tiny, fragile, warm body on mine mitigated my normal disgust at filth and brought to mind another idea of how to get what I’d so unexpectedly caught out of the woods. His legs really were too short for stumbling through the tangled forest growth and all I could imagine for the how of how he had come to be in my traps as he was, was he had crawled through the brambles, as any other animal would. This would do me no good, but he was so small, surely he was light as well. Despite the thickness and difficulty of the close-grown plant matter, I should be able to carry him and still manage to make better time out of the woods.

“Come on, Jake,” I said, letting myself indulge in the feel of him against me and all those delicate, protruding bones beneath my hands.

“Evan,” he murmured into my middle, before turning those pretty, jet eyes up to me and blinking some of the dampness out of them.

I reached out and played with a heavy fall of hair on his forehead, wondering which was darker, the lock between my fingers or the moist, shining eyes looking up at me, before flicking the hair away, indecisive on the point. “I’m going to carry you home, Jake,” I informed him.

There was a half expectation in the back of my mentality that he would resist this, try to escape and force me to apply force of my own, to make him submit, but my little, wild one only smiled that sunny, happy curl of his lips, as if this suggestion were perfect and all he could wish for. He let go of my hand and the clinging grip he had held around my stomach, and reached his arms up for me, compliantly. Showing me this feral truly did hold more intelligence and grasp on at least understanding words than he was capable of articulating. A near mute, and perhaps somewhat slow, but by no means completely lost in himself.

I let the thought pass and concentrated on how it felt to have him in my arms. The first thing I noted was it was surprisingly easy to pick him up and carry him. I’d anticipated the lightness of his too-small body against my chest, but had never held something which did not attempt to fight me or sink its claws in me. Jake hung onto me with his legs around my torso and his arms laying easy around my neck, like an embrace. His head lolled on my shoulder, near pillowed there, and the second thing I noted was, despite the hassle I had of shoving brambles and brush aside one-armed, this was well. Amazingly well, to have someone allowing me to have them so effortlessly.

I kept glancing at him, admiring, _coveting_ , that look of pure, unconcerned trust in me displayed on his smudged face. That look was mine and no one else’s. Just like the boy himself. Mine. Both belonged to me and I would keep them.

“Evan, Evan,” my prize murmured again, sleepily, as we finally came out on open ground and cut through the thin place in the hedge separating the woods from the manor’s gardens and grounds. It was like a question and I answered it with a half graze of my brown eyes over him.

“Almost there, Jake,” I grunted, headed for the manor itself, determination hardening in my chest, even as it seemed to constrict around my heart.

Only one person could come between me and what was mine by right of capture. And he was not to be found in his house this day.

But adults in general were troublesome and the murmuring and lingering stares began almost the moment I set foot in my father’s house with a dirty, little boy held in my arms for all to see. Stares that followed me and pieced my back with rising aggravation. I expected the challenge, when it came, but it was no less infuriating.

“Evan MacMillan, what on earth?”

I flashed a look of fury up at the woman who dared to speak to me in this fashion, the one my father called _Helena_ and _my head of house_ , and clutched the loosening coil of near-sleeping boy, _my Jake_ , tighter. Tighter to the point he struggled a little, limply, and squealed an almost sound of discomfort, borderline pain, in my ear.

“He’s mine.” The words came out hot and venomous, the feelings I harbored for the tall woman on the spiked heels spilling out unrestrained. “I found him and he’s mine.”

“Yours,” she repeated, disdain and trepidation and determination to _handle_ me shading the single word. “You can’t keep a little boy the way you would a stray dog.”

The woman, _the bitch_ , made a quick dive to take what was mine from my arms, and I turned my back on her, both to show refusal and to shelter my feral from her. Frame stiff and face hot as my words were cold. “Yes, I can. I’ll talk to my father.”

My heart throbbed deep and slow, low down in my chest at the threat I knew I would have to follow through on and looked on with minute fear, and my hold on the slight body in my arms tightened again, tightened until he squirmed further and half righted himself from the slump over my shoulder he had been in. “Evan, Evan,” his tired voice demanded, softly, drowsily, one hand coming to press to my cheek, while a pout of thought and concentration clouded his sleep-addled features. As if my little, wild one were asking mutely why I felt the need to crush him so mercilessly. The warm press of that hand, so tiny and hot along my skin kindled something even more biting and cruel down inside my fuming heart, and I flashed another glance up at the head of my father’s household servants.

The woman had gone pale and rigid and stepped away from me, and the fact added a bitter triumph to the other feelings brewing within me. No one stood against me when I brought Archie MacMillan into the matter at hand. Not even, or maybe _especially_ , the one who spent an inordinate amount of time in his bed. I was young, but no fool. I knew what it was my father wanted of _her_. But whatever her place was, this was _my father’s_ house and I was _his son_ and no one but Archie MacMillan took something away from me, and everyone knew it.

Venomous victory complete, I readjusted my grip on my little prize, so I could ease the pressure on his underfed body, and let my face cool against the palm he still held to my face, before turning my words on him. “Come on, Jake, we need to clean you up.”

“Evan, Evan,” he murmured, compliantly enough. A small, drowsy-happy murmur, followed by a blurry-eyed yawn. The little thing in my arms was weary and his head was weaving and bobbing on his neck, hardly able to keep me in focus. The sight of it made that hot, possessive something rise in my chest again and I fully turned my back on the woman wavering off to the rear of me. I had no more use for _her_.

It was easy to carry my little feral up to my room and into my private bathroom, with him holding to me so innocently, so sweetly. He offered me no resistance, until I set him down on his feet and attempted to get his clothes off. Then, “Evan!” he complained, tears budding in his eyes, fist clenched in the dirty material of the scarf around his neck. I might have expected that fuss, and I ground my teeth and did my best to hold back my wrath at it. I did not want him weeping and holding back from me, I wanted him standing there sleepily, blinking and yawning with warm, almost-dreaminess, like a puppy which has worn itself out and will soon be nothing more than a limp, pliable body to be manipulated as one wished.

A greedy wanting for that, my Jake, asleep and malleable under my hands was what allowed me to push past my anger and let him take the scarf with him into the water. Let him! What did it matter, so long as the other ratty, too-big clothes were thrown away and the boy himself was squealing little, surprised sounds under the water? The spray made him squirm, at first, and he whimpered until I almost came into the shower with him and scrubbed the filth off him. I was annoyed by the wetness of my clothes clinging to me, but this paled under the sight of milky skin appearing, as dirt ran away into the drain. Creamy flesh that was soft and smooth spread out under my hands and an even deeper avarice bloomed in my heart.

I had never possessed a live trophy before, and the little one allowing me to handle him with simple trust was beautiful with the dirt washed off him. A beautiful, living specimen, and he was mine. Just mine. No one would take him away, even if I had to go to my father to ensure it was so.

Shoving aside thoughts of my father, of Archie MacMillan, as far from my mind as I could, I turned off the steaming water and coaxed my little feral out of the shower, reaching a hand out to him. “Come on, Jake. Let’s get you dry and dressed.”

It was irksome he didn’t let me take the scarf off his neck, still, but he let me wring most of the water out of the silly thing and towel the beads of moisture clinging to his too-heated skin and glistening in his ink and jet hair. Hair that was soft and thick and heavy when it was clean and dry and combed, so it wasn’t so wild all about his head. And half way through my task, he was yawning and swaying on his feet again and attempting to cuddle and curl into my chest. Annoyance sparked and I wanted to lash out for him to let me finish, but the warmth of him pressed against me prompted something hot and hard to constrict my chest and I felt a hand going up to cradle his head against my shoulder, my fingers luxuriating in his hair.

“Evan, Evan,” he cooed into the curve of my neck, and I swept him up and carried him to my bed. He was pliable and limp and only semi-helpful in getting him into some of my older, smaller clothes, which were still too big for him, but at least clean. And then he was nothing but a small lump in my bed. Hand curled up under his chin and long lashes laying against his soft cheeks.

I brushed a finger over his skin, over his face, and felt the swell of pride and desire in my chest, as I watched him breathe slow inhales that barely moved his lungs, my finger grazing his cheek. He was mine. _Mine._ And I would dare even my father to keep him.

Clenching my teeth at the thought, I turned away, to go clean myself, now my wild one was tended to, but his calling after me stopped me.

“Evan!” It was equal parts plaintive and half-aware and whimper, and I found my feet turning back to him, a frown of consternation creasing my forehead.

“Go to sleep, Jake,” I said, using a hand in his hair to nudge him back into a recline and out of the upright position he must have bolted into when I turned my back on him. “It’s my turn to clean up, then I’ll come back, I promise.”

He eyed me dubiously, that intent look of concentration and seriousness on his features he’d turned on me in the woods, and I wondered if I would have trouble leaving him alone. But he yawned wide, his eyes dropping, and his fingers weaving through mine, to pull my hand from his hair, before letting go.

He was breathing deep and shallow when I left him, but I still hurried through washing down the shower and cleaning my own self, afraid of what I would find when I exited my bathroom. Hair still damp, shirt still in my hand, and water beading thick and troublesome on my back, I realized I needn't have been concerned. My Jake was asleep, as I’d left him. Hair like a spill of ichor on the pillow, those same, shallow breaths passing between slightly parted lips, the fingers of both hands now curled delicately off on the coverlet somewhere near his face.

Looking at him lying there, respirations barely lifting the cloth of my blankets, that covetous thing in my chest constricted, yet again. The shirt I was holding lowered and slipped, unnoticed and forgotten, from a hand, which sunk to my side slowly, as if the will animating it and holding it to action had been severed. My bare feet carried me across the floor to him, this little, wild one. My feral I’d cut from my snares. Unknowingly, confusedly, I was just there, staring down at him, my brow furrowed in troubled thought. How was it this boy could unwind me so? Take my control from me with the simple press of his body on mine, his bones so breakable under my hands, or alter my plans and desires with an innocently-happy smile? It was senseless and dangerous, and perhaps my keeping him unwise. He could be the ruin of me, if I was not careful, and I knew it in some deep, instinctual portion of my soul, which understood the truth of what it was to be Archie MacMillan’s son. Weakness and affection were not things affordable in my life, and so not things I allowed to touch me. I was a hunter and not the prey, and hunters were different from other beasts.

My hand went out to graze over his cheek again, to slide along the length of a stray lock of shining, black hair, greedy love spreading in my heart, then my hand dropped and, without conscious intention, crept toward the table beside my bed, where I kept a collection of knives useful in the woods. It would be so easy to ensure the boy could not work his wiles on me, so easy to take another form of trophy for my catch. So easy. So unknowingly effortless. A stain of red and a whining cry, the flutter of a heart under my hand, and done. Things had happened in the MacMillan manor before, and this would be no new shock to the structure that hid its secrets so well.

The pads of my fingers encountered wood, felt the grains and whirls of the intricate patterns in the texture of it, and twitched irritably. Almost as if something were sinking its claws into me and I was jerking spasmodically in response to it. A slow drift and metal met my touch. The knob of a hidden drawer, and—

As though he, this mysterious creature of the tangled woods, sensed me there, watching him and considering his value to me, versus his ability to undermine me, the young one mewed a little sound, stretched, puppyish, unthinking, ruffling the pristine blankets, and rolled unto his back. All unaware of the thoughts prowling behind my eyes.

This was _Jake_ , _my Jake_ and his blurred gaze located me, even as a drowsy smile played over his lips. “Evan, Evan,” he murmured, small, oh-so-delicate hands reaching for me in a way that spoke of imploring. Tired delight at my presence was apparent in his features and every line of his slight frame under the cotton covers seemed to ask for me. To call for me. And my fingers fell away from the drawer they had been closing on. Dropped to my side, as I frowned deeper. Once again, this child had taken control from me. Without a word, he had made me change my intended actions simply through a sleepy smile and some small movements. What was it about this feral, which could do such a thing?

I had no apparent answer and didn’t seek for one, instead doing something further against my nature and slipping into the bed with him. My prize, my Jake, burbled happy sounds and snuggled against me, rubbing his face on my bare chest, like some form of small, forest creature, before settling, pressed against my skin. “Evan,” he intoned a final time, before falling fully asleep, and with that simple word, that single utterance of my name, what was mine seemed to stake his claim on me as indelibly as I had on him the moment I had located him in my snares.

I was _his_ , and that shouldn’t be, and yet… yet, wasn’t I his? His _owner_ , his _captor_ , his _possessor_. Didn’t the thing kept own the keeper, as surely as the keeper what was kept?

Fierceness bubbled up in my chest and I closed my arms around the fragile body beside me. _My_ Jake. _My_ prize. His acceptance of me only proved it, and I would not concern myself with the rest. _Would not._ Let anyone think the feral thing curled in my arms was a weakness, I would show them _otherwise_. Hunters were beasts with claws, after all.

I thought it and I closed my eyes, and I fell asleep holding my catch that night, memorizing every knob of bone in his back and every twitch of his sleep-succumbed body on mine. Tumbled down into dreaming oblivion, inhaling his earthen scent and tracing every line of his fine, delicate features in subtle ways, personally becoming acquainted with every part of what now belonged to me. And, in the morning, I took him to my father, to ensure it would be so, stood with him, holding his hand in mine, in what was the heart of the MacMillan manor, the shadowed office where my father ran his mining operation, and what I so rare did. Asked my father for something.

Heart throbbing painfully underneath my ribs, I recalled for my father how I had found my feral and begged to keep him. The weight of the man named Archie MacMillan’s scrutiny was often enough to crush, to dismember and disassemble the strongest, at a glance, but I had been born under it, possessed some of its very essence as a part of my being and, in some strange way, having Jake at my side bolstered my audacity. The tiny, wild thing of the woods appeared to hold nothing but indifferent disdain for the imposing figure looming over us both. My Jake stood, hand-in-hand with me, head cocked to one side, a frown of concentration and seriousness pulling his face into thoughtful lines. But only for a moment. Then he yawned and lost all interest in Archie MacMillan, instead pulling at the end of my arm intently and examining all the oddities my father was wont to keep in his private space.

Stones and bones and curious things had always littered the room I seldom dared enter and Jake was fascinated by it all, completely mindless of me or anything else, and I sensed my father’s eyes follow him, but neither of us said anything. It was so utterly beguiling, this little one’s inability to know fear, fear where it should have existed and would have existed for anyone of common rationality. But not with Jake. Not with this creature of the woods and brambles, and all Archie MacMillan said was, “I’ll call Caleb Quinn.”

A simple utterance that told me I had won. Won it all.

Caleb Quinn was the law wrapped in black leather and creaking boots. A tall figure with white hair under a black hat. A man who smelled like death and who Jake snarled at when the man took a knee to examine my little feral under the light of the afternoon sun.

Dark eyes bright and sharp, Jake hissed at him, then whined and hid behind my legs, clinging to me and shouting, “Evan!” as if my name were a ward to keep Caleb Quinn at bay. And pride a bitter core holding down my heart, it was hard to not show the display gave me pleasure, hard only to let my hand fall in his hair and stroke it, while my findling peered around my thigh at the two adults, eyes narrowed and as close to disgusted as I had ever seen them.

“It’s alright, Jake,” I assured him, and Quinn nodded a short jerk of his chin at the two of us.

“Little one seems fond of your boy, MacMillan.” A curled finger went to the brim of Quinn’s hat and angled it up. His rasping voice, a sound I had always associated with smoke, lowered on his next words and he turned away from me, as if to shelter _me_ from what he would say next. “You’re probably doing the right thing, keeping him like this. I see no reason to take an obviously unwanted and neglected child away from a place he’s happy and clearly will be well cared for.” Quinn’s oddly white eyes skimmed over me, a quick flash from over his shoulder, and his voice drawled even lower, as he grasped my father’s hand in an agreement. “I’ll make arrangements for no one to find him if they come looking. There won’t be anything for you to worry about.”

There was more, whispery, gruff details between the two men, specifics laid out for them I didn’t care to hear. Didn’t need to hear and had no use for. What did it matter what they agreed to now? What the man in leather would do to ensure Jake’s presence in my father’s house was never questioned? The moment Archie MacMillan had said we should call Caleb Quinn I had known inherently Jake belonged to me in every possible way. I was as done with these adults as they were with me and my feral.

“Come on, Jake,” I said, taking his hand in mine and feeling the lightness of it there, resting so perfectly in my larger one. “We don’t need to be here anymore.”

Let the adults talk. The thing was done, and what was mine said my name with abandon and grinned up at me, innocently delighted at the notion we were going away from the two men who had just determined his fate. Jaw set, I led my little, wild thing into the manor.

**Author's Note:**

> This salty ball of angst and glitter is an original fiction author and fan fiction writer, who literally lives for comments and reader interaction. Even if this is nothing but inarticulate vowel screams, lol. He exist on a flotilla of social media, separated into a wide array writery things.
> 
> If you are crazy enough to want to see what I'm writing on any given day, and maybe try tempting me into writing something specific, feel free to join me in my personal writing Discord [Midway](https://discord.gg/jsQw96p), or friend me on Discord at LeoOtherland#7066 if you would rather chat one on one.
> 
> On Facebook I can be located on my [author page](https://www.facebook.com/LeoOtherland/) for all things original fiction, or in the [AO3 Armada group](https://www.facebook.com/groups/601270063618951) for all things fan fiction.
> 
> On [Twitter](https://twitter.com/RoseOfOtherLand) or [Tumbler](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/leootherlands) I primarily run with the fan fiction crowd and I seldom post and/or tweet anything, but if you want to drop me a line, I am always up for a chat.


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